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Safety incidents at Tesla plant were higher than industry average in 2015

latimes.com

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Re: Safety incidents at Tesla plant were higher than industry average in 2015

#41

Post by PhasmaFelis »

zaroth wrote: post #39
hackuser wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the fact remains there's too much non-linearity in the means of production to get where Elon is trying to go without pushing his people to the limit. What is the basis for that? It is an easy rationalization for an issue with serious consequences.

For far too many problems the work doesn't subdivide cleanly. A single person "pulling" for 16 hours a day at a given problem achieves 2x more than two people pulling at it for 8 hours each. Or to put it another way, when Jeff Dean pulls an all nighter and commits code at 6am before collapsing under his desk for a few moments rest, for the rest of the day, all of Google is twice as productive.

For some disciplines, yes, but it seems unlikely that factory floor work is one of those.

(Also, back when I was still pulling all-nighters, I could do 3-5 days worth of work in a night, but I'd be largely useless for the rest of the week, so it was a wash at best. Good for catching up before a deadline, but not really a strong strategy overall.)

Re: Safety incidents at Tesla plant were higher than industry average in 2015

#42

Post by PhasmaFelis »

hanoz wrote: post #20

"Tesla's safety record had been worse than slaughterhouses and sawmills." OMG "The scores don’t account for severity however.” Oh...

EDIT: Moving this to its own top-level comment. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14422326

Re: Safety incidents at Tesla plant were higher than industry average in 2015

#43

Post by dang »

gr2020 wrote: post #3

Title here is misleading. Actual title of article at LA Times is "Tesla had worse safety records than slaughterhouses and sawmills" - note "had", past tense. The records in question are from 2015, and as the article says, they are working on improvements.

Ok, we've changed the baity title to representative language from the article, in accordance with https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

All: let's please have a more substantive discussion now. It's amazing how sensitive these threads are to hot coals in the title.

Re: Safety incidents at Tesla plant were higher than industry average in 2015

#44

Post by kagamine »

c3534l wrote: post #31
leemailll wrote: post #7

>Charley Briese said his job involved pulling down a hanging drill three times a minute for 12 to 16 hours a day, causing severe tendinitis 12-16 hrs a day?

When your job involves pulling down a hanging drill, and the worse injury a person can expect is tennis elbow, that's not too bad. Also, yes, poor people work 12-16 hours a day. It was certainly the case when I worked at a grocery store years ago, at least.

Does that mean it's acceptable?

Re: Safety incidents at Tesla plant were higher than industry average in 2015

#45

Post by PhasmaFelis »

I made a spreadsheet out of the PDF of injury rates by industry, which is much easier to sort and compare. Google removed the indentation I had added from the original, but it should be clear enough; the number of digits in the NAICS code is the indent level. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LKE00PJDDE_ZnDb1Slpq...

For the record, in 2016, the injury rate per 1000 workers for "automobile manufacturing" as a whole was 6.7; "Animal (except poultry) slaughtering" was 7.2; "Sawmills" 7.3; Tesla's was 8.1, on a level with "psychiatric and substance abuse hospitals", just above "heavy and civil engineering construction", and just below "correctional institutions", to name a few. Tesla claims they're down to 4.6 in 1st quarter 2017, but of course we only have their word for that.

The document further breaks out cases with days away from work, restrictions, or transfers (DART). That's 3.9 for the auto industry in general, 4.9 for non-poultry slaughtering, 3.9 for sawmills, and 7.3 for Tesla (from the WorkSafe report linked in the article).

So it sounds like there may actually be something to this. Weird that they decided to go with clickbait instead of just presenting the data.

Re: Safety incidents at Tesla plant were higher than industry average in 2015

#46

Post by CamperBob2 »

apalmer wrote: post #28
PhantomGremlin wrote: post #11

The Simpsons explained unions many years ago. It's spot on: Waif: You can't treat the working man this way! One of these days we'll form a union, and get the fair and equitable treatment we deserve! Then we'll go too far, and become corrupt and shiftless, and the Japanese will eat us alive!

japanese did not eat us automotive industry alive because of unions. japanese primarily eat the us automotive industry alive because of far superior manufacturing innovation.

And of course, unions have never been known to stand in the way of manufacturing innovation.

Re: Safety incidents at Tesla plant were higher than industry average in 2015

#47

Post by PhasmaFelis »

gr2020 wrote: post #3

Title here is misleading. Actual title of article at LA Times is "Tesla had worse safety records than slaughterhouses and sawmills" - note "had", past tense. The records in question are from 2015, and as the article says, they are working on improvements.

Later in the article they give the numbers from 2016; they aren't quite as bad then, but still pretty bad.

Re: Safety incidents at Tesla plant were higher than industry average in 2015

#48

Post by the_duke »

There have been numerous articles over the last few weeks, all in the same vain.

And all with very click-baity negative headlines and articles that don't exactly seem like neutral reporting of an issue.

I'd bet that there is some PR firm trying to drum up anti Tesla sentiments.

(I'm not saying that there wasn't or isn't an issue at Tesla factories, but the kind of reporting stinks like PR campaign).

Re: Safety incidents at Tesla plant were higher than industry average in 2015

#49

Post by Kiro »

the_duke wrote: post #48

There have been numerous articles over the last few weeks, all in the same vain. And all with very click-baity negative headlines and articles that don't exactly seem like neutral reporting of an issue. I'd bet that there is some PR firm trying to drum up anti Tesla sentiments. (I'm not saying that there wasn't or isn't an issue at Tesla factories, but the kind of reporting stinks like PR campaign).

Would you say the same about Uber?

Re: Safety incidents at Tesla plant were higher than industry average in 2015

#50

Post by Sacho »

c3534l wrote: post #30

> Tesla did not dispute the numbers. > we now have the lowest injury rate in the industry by far This article seems to be misleading readers into thinking that Tesla has unsafe working conditions, despite being the best in the industry.

Tesla alleges they have the lowest injury rate for 2017. The report analyzed data from 2014 to the end of 2016 and found Tesla's injury rate to be higher than the average. They allege that there is not enough data released for 2017 to substantiate Tesla's claim.
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